


careful what you wish for

by Anonymous



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Crack, Gen, Nothing but crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 11:30:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12816570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Thoth surveyed the faded and worn list of Millennium Item Wishes, his claw tip running from the top of the list, written in ink so faded and ancient he could hardly see it, down to the handful of recent additions that had been scribbled in a rather anachronistic biro.'Let's see... Resurrection, yes... Regicide, promotion, power... Friendship, patricide, friendship, friendship... If they want friends, tell 'em we're out.'---AKA a totally legitimate and canon compliant explanation of how events in Egypt went from a dramatic showdown between a traitorous priest and a pharaoh in pants, to, well, the hot mess known asMemory World.





	careful what you wish for

A ruined palace. The slick of wet blood down his leg. The cooling body of a young girl in his arms. 

Kaiba clutched his head against the memories that rolled thick and fast through his skull. 

Rebelling against a king, then writing an ode to their damned friendship. 

None of this wishful nostalgia mattered! It had nothing to do with Kaiba, whose road to the future was firmly paved and grounded before him. 

Except Kaiba seemed to be the only one convinced of that. Kaiba, and oddly enough, Yuugi. 

The others, Isis Ishtar, Mazaki, the barking mutt, they were all were determined to talk at him like something that happened 3000 years ago affected the battle going on right now. 

And even worse were the _feelings_ that invaded his consciousness.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Yuugi was growling, his fists clenched against his legs. Whatever illusion Malik was showing him had him worried. 

Unbidden, the image of another Yuugi swam into his head, weary and resigned to his fate as his closest priests turned against him. Pangs of exhilaration and deep grief shocked through him and it left him feeling sick.

Kaiba turned on his heel, marching away from the battle. Nothing that followed in this duel would affect him. Mokuba followed hot on his heels, rabbiting about getting the jet ready for it's trans-pacific flight.

Kaiba rubbed his forehead in irritation. The things he was seeing weren't his memories. They were the remnants of the emotions of some dried out corpse. He was here to destroy the past, not let some golden wand drag him even further back into it.

'I wish I wasn't involved in any of this,' he thought wearily, before he could steel his thoughts against such childish notions of wishing for anything. Still. Life would be so much simpler if wishes came true...

He advanced to the loading Bay. Up on deck, Yuugi's friends were far too invested with the duel, and far too used to the creeping darkness of the shadow games, to notice the momentary glow of the millennium rod.

\---

In the world of gods and other such mystical beings, a young woman sped between benches of tired workers. 

'Urgent! Excuse me, coming through- Thoth!' 

Seshat drew short in front of her ibis-headed husband, who sat at his writing desk looking as perfect as all the other beings of heaven. 

Thoth regarded his wife with a questioning eyebrow. Their department hardly had urgent business these days, despite how inventive and naked those Neo-Pagans could get.

'We just got an M-W.' Seshat declared, brandished a thick wad of paperwork under his nose like a child's loincloth she was eager to foist off on a servant. 'A Millennium Wish.'

Thoth sighed. He sat back in his executive chair and reached for the jar of papyri he kept under his desk. 

'Again? Very well, let's see what we can do.' 

He surveyed the faded and worn list of Millennium Item Wishes, his claw tip running from the top of the list, written in ink so faded and ancient he could hardly see it, down to the handful of recent additions that had been scribbled in a rather anachronistic biro. 

'Let's see... Resurrection, yes... Regicide, promotion, power... Friendship, patricide, friendship, friendship... If they want friends, tell 'em we're out.'

Seshat bubbled on her quite human feet, clad in sensible office shoes. The baubles in her hair jingled as she shook her head.

'No, no, if you look, it's quite different from all those. The wish-maker wasn't an authorised user of the Millennium Rod, you see. Never even touched the bloody thing and yet it somehow took a liking to him.'

'A rogue item? That's never good.' 

'It's taken us all quite by surprise. You see, there's been some confusion in the ranks.' Seshat rung her hands anxiously. 'In fact, the Department for the Regulation of Reality has already begun implementing the changes without full authorisation...'

'Nonsense. As as a sub-vice executive assistant, you should know such a thing is impossible thanks to the internal review procedures we implemented after that Alexander the Great scandal.'

'It's all in here.' Seshat said darkly, motioning to her paperwork once again.

Thoth spread the sheaf of papers across his desk. The details of the changes to reality were dense and troubling, extending not only from minor details of the present but all the way back into the distant past. Seshat was actually moved to read a little of the paperwork, though at a distance, without touching it. 

'This is terrible work. Look at this, riding horses in the New Kingdom! Not a chariot in sight? These budget cuts get worse every year.'

Thoth had his beak in a different page, scratching his fluffy head in bewilderment.  
'Why did they change the outfits too? They were perfectly serviceable. I thought pants were getting very trendy these days too?'

'The Implementation Team are very conservative, dear. They wanted a look that was more traditional and less... girly.'

Quite rightly, in Seshat's opinion. Pants had no place in a dignified royal courtroom, and the nameless Pharaoh would probably thank them for that one. Everyone had that one fashion blunder they wished they could erase from the photo album. Seshat's was 80s shoulderpads.

'But now everyone's got these silly hats?'

'Horus tells me we'll all be wearing them next year, dear.'

But these were just surface details. Seshat buried her head in her papyrii, because now Thoth was coming across certain allowances that had had to be made for the wish to take full shape... 

'Seshat, love. What's this subsection about prophecies?'

Seshat didn't even look up from her paper. 'Due to the... inconstant nature of the past, and the residual flux from the wish, we've had to push back the discovery of the Millennium Puzzle. Not much, only by about thirty or forty years...'

'Not much? That's decades!'

'Yes, a few minor decades on top of thousands of years. The poor king will barely notice.'

'But what about the dead archaeogists? Quite sensible, theiving archaeologists selling cursed artifacts on the black market. That's the sort of thing that creates a lasting sense of mystery around the world.'

'It's all laid out in the abstract.'

'Yes, I saw. A middle aged gambler who keeps a priceless and sacred grave gift in his basement.'

Seshat was mumbling something about budget cuts again, but Thoth was in no mood to listen. 

'You know I like to see archaeogists get their comeuppance. And hang on. Isn't the vessel meant to be the _only one in the world_ who can solve the puzzle? Now he's the only one who's ever tried.'

'That still... technically makes it true, dear.'

Another section, whose brief outline was making an effort to obfuscate as much as possible, caught Thoth's eye. 'How could they remove the priestly uprising? That bit seems integral to the whole occasion.'

'Yes, well, it was felt that priest uprisings were getting a bit stale. You remember when they wanted to try limiting them to once every few dynasties?'

'It's not another civil war?'

'Nothing like that. It's still priests, but budget cuts meant we had to make some- well. It's just one priest now.'

Thoth shot her a sidelong glance, fingers drumming on his slate. 'Uh huh.'

'But it's very exciting.'

Thoth skimmed to the end of the page, finishing with a wince. 'You made Aknadin _what_?! But he's such a lovely fellow...'

'It's dramatic, dear.'

'Remember when he scaled that burning building to rescue those orphans?'

'Brother against brother, father against son...'

'Every year he held a charity drive to feed starving lepers.'

'I don't know if you've ever heard of _Star Wars_...'

'He's in heaven! Yes, he melted a few villagers, fine. Everyone makes mistakes. But this says he commits treason! Even a rookie judge wouldn't let him into heaven.' 

'They can't all blame you. Ammut can be notoriously picky.'

'Are you suggesting this could be due to failing to keep a consistant feeding schedule?' Their eyes met speculatively before sliding away sidelong. 

Seshat started up the paper shredder. 'Naturally. I'll just make sure this important document isn't misplaced before I circulate the memo reminding Anubis that any mistakes regarding death and the placement of souls thereof is his own responsibility for having failed to understand the full subtext of the initial statement dated to the preceding years retrospectively.'

'Very well. Osiris still hasn't launched that internal inquiry into the eighteenth dynasty; if we leave Aknadin's file between Hatshepsut and Akhenaten, his location won't be discovered for another two thousand years, at which point we will do the best thing for the situation.'

'Dear?'

'Simply deny any change has in fact taken place.'


End file.
